Arctic Sea Ice Volume on Thin Ice

Sep 16, 2015

By Climate Central,

Volume of Consequences

While extent is a traditional measure of sea ice, volume is also important. The lowest volume estimated this year was less than 36 percent of the 1979 minimum. Even though the annual minimum usually happens in mid-September, ice had already reached its 5th-lowest annual volume on record at the end August. Climate models suggest that by the end of the century, volume will decrease twice as fast as the extent.

Sea ice melt impacts local and global temperatures in a feedback loop. When the global temperature increases, Arctic ice melts faster. As this ice melts, less sunlight is reflected back to space, leading to more absorption of solar energy into the ocean and atmosphere, further increasing global temperatures. There is research showing that Arctic warming could lead to both oceanic and atmospheric changes in circulation, while also having devastating impacts to Arctic communities and their way of life.

Recent Arctic Ice Trends

This year’s Arctic sea ice minimum was about 700,000 square miles (2.5 times the size of Texas) below the 1981-2010 normal.

Over the last few decades, and particularly in recent years, the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by a skin of sea ice has steadily shrunk. But it’s not just this extent that matters — the volume of sea ice, which takes into account its thickness, is also important, but traditionally much more difficult to measure. The 2010 launch of the European

The Fourth of July weekend wasn’t just about fireworks and cookouts, it also marked the end of a key period of summer melt in the Arctic that can determine how low sea ice goes for the year. The floating ice cap has been on a steady downward trajectory for decades, thanks to global warming, and in recent years it has hit record lows with the added